John Wall's contract is about to enter ridiculous territory in two years. They need to swallow the pill and trade him away now while they still can, like the Clippers did with Blake Griffin.

I don’t think they’re going to trade Wall, he’s their best player. They would trade Gortat, Morris, Porter or even Beal before trading away Wall but I don’t see Beal ever being traded either.

Trading Gortat and Porter this summer may be a possibility in return for a draft pick and a back up wing or big. Then they’d roll with Oubre as their starting SF and they’d have two draft picks to develop behind their starters:

PG: Wall, Sato, Sessions

SG: Beal, Meeks, draft pick? Cheaper vet in trade?

SF: Oubre, draft pick? Cheaper vet in trade ?

PF: Morris, Scott

C: Mahinmi, draft pick or cheap vet in trade?

I’ve advocated for trading Gortat - even if its for trash in return - for 2 seasons now. It really has to be done, but I don’t believe Euro Ernie will do it. Mahinmi is actually a better option as a starter than Gortat. Neither one of them can shoot, guard stretch 5’s or have much of an offensive game but Mahinmi at least plays better defense and gives more consistent effort and plays tougher than Gortat.

They need to trade Gortat to get him off the books for a back up guard or big and then they need to draft a C to develop in round 1.

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I don’t think they’re going to trade Wall, he’s their best player. They would trade Gortat, Morris, Porter or even Beal before trading away Wall but I don’t see Beal ever being traded either.

They cannot afford to pay John Wall $40+ mil per year.

6 minutes ago, turtle28 said:

Trading Gortat and Porter this summer may be a possibility in return for a draft pick and a back up wing or big. Then they’d roll with Oubre as their starting SF and they’d have two draft picks to develop behind their starters:

You'd probably have to pay someone to take Gortat. Trading Porter solves nothing because Oubre is a FA after next year. Oubre probably has a higher trade value than Porter simply because of his contract. In the NBA cap space can be more valuable than actual production on the court.

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You'd probably have to pay someone to take Gortat. Trading Porter solves nothing because Oubre is a FA after next year. Oubre probably has a higher trade value than Porter simply because of his contract. In the NBA cap space can be more valuable than actual production on the court.

Gortat has an expiring contract next year, that’s valuable for a team who’s looking to open up a lot of cap space to sign a max player in the 2019-2020 offseason. They’re not going to get much for him, but getting a back up C who’s much cheaper and probably about equal to what Gortat has given the wizards the last two years in a better situation than paying him to be the starter next year.

They’re not going to trade Wall, he’s their franchise player, I can not stress this enough. It’s just not going to happen, just like they’re was no way the Redskins were going to trade Trent two years ago when you suggested it and roll with Ty Nsekhe at LT.

I know why you’d want to trade Wall, but that actually solves nothing unless you’re trading him for one of the top tier players in the NBA, a player who’s just above Wall. His contract is basically immovable because of the size of it. When they gave him the super max extension they cemented that he’d basically be a career wizard.

If you trade Wall for a good PG and picks, that solves nothing too because we saw that the wizards with Sato and Beal as the starting guards are still a playoff team and likely not to be a lottery team, so trading Wall away just doesn’t make the team better in every way.

With trading Porter away and having Oubre start it gives them cap space they can use on an upgrade at center which is what they really need. I realize that Oubre is only under contract for one more year, but he’s not a max player like Porter was. Oubre won’t be cheap, but he’s not going to cost as much as Beal and Porter to retain. So, trading Gortat and Porter again, creates more cap space and they already have replacements in house, they’d just have to find back ups for Mahinmi and Oubre, which they can find in the draft or through their trade when they would move Gortat and Porter.

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We need to play the Celtics in the playoff for any chance. The Raptors will eat our lunch.

Depends on which wizards team shows up and which Raptors team shows up in the playoffs. History tells us the Wizards usually play better in the playoffs than in the regular season and the Raptors usually play worse. Certainly though, I think the Celtics w/o Kyrie is the ideal match up.

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Gortat has an expiring contract next year, that’s valuable for a team who’s looking to open up a lot of cap space to sign a max player in the 2019-2020 offseason. They’re not going to get much for him, but getting a back up C who’s much cheaper and probably about equal to what Gortat has given the wizards the last two years in a better situation than paying him to be the starter next year.

You have a point, his expiring contract will be worth more next year meaning they may get a better offer than they could get for him this year.

2 hours ago, turtle28 said:

They’re not going to trade Wall, he’s their franchise player, I can not stress this enough. It’s just not going to happen, just like they’re was no way the Redskins were going to trade Trent two years ago when you suggested it and roll with Ty Nsekhe at LT.

Really? Because the Pacers traded Paul George. The Clippers just traded Blake Griffin. Sometimes you have to hit the reset. This roster as built will never make it to the NBA Finals, and even if it did could never beat the West's representative in the Finals. They are mediocre and capped out.

2 hours ago, turtle28 said:

I know why you’d want to trade Wall, but that actually solves nothing unless you’re trading him for one of the top tier players in the NBA, a player who’s just above Wall. His contract is basically immovable because of the size of it. When they gave him the super max extension they cemented that he’d basically be a career wizard.

The Pacers moved Paul George and got better.

2 hours ago, turtle28 said:

If you trade Wall for a good PG and picks, that solves nothing too because we saw that the wizards with Sato and Beal as the starting guards are still a playoff team and likely not to be a lottery team, so trading Wall away just doesn’t make the team better in every way.

Well that's the problem with the East, not enough good teams to beat the mediocre ones. The Wizards should probably consider going full reboot then. However, if they traded Morris, Gortat and Oubre I bet they could fall to a lottery pick.

2 hours ago, turtle28 said:

With trading Porter away and having Oubre start it gives them cap space they can use on an upgrade at center which is what they really need.

It only gives them space for 1 year though.

2 hours ago, turtle28 said:

I realize that Oubre is only under contract for one more year, but he’s not a max player like Porter was.

I'm not sure I agree with that after seeing some of the players that have received max extensions.

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You have a point, his expiring contract will be worth more next year meaning they may get a better offer than they could get for him this year.

Really? Because the Pacers traded Paul George. The Clippers just traded Blake Griffin. Sometimes you have to hit the reset. This roster as built will never make it to the NBA Finals, and even if it did could never beat the West's representative in the Finals. They are mediocre and capped out.

The Pacers moved Paul George and got better.

Well that's the problem with the East, not enough good teams to beat the mediocre ones. The Wizards should probably consider going full reboot then. However, if they traded Morris, Gortat and Oubre I bet they could fall to a lottery pick.

It only gives them space for 1 year though.

I'm not sure I agree with that after seeing some of the players that have received max extensions.

The pacers traded a Paul George because he wasn’t going to re-sign in Indy. This was the Carmelo situation from when he was in Denver. Carmelo told the Denver front office he didn’t want to re-sign there, so they traded him to the Knicks. Wall wants to be here, he signed a max extension to stay here. His contract is also larger than George’s was, so it’s harder to move and despite what you want, do you honestly think Ted Leonsis is going to trade John Wall? I say no way in hell. Lol

I don’t think there’s a scenario where the wizards fall to the lottery if theh have 2 of their big 3, either Wall, Beal or Porter. In order to tank, they’d have to trade all of them for lesser players and picks.

You could be right about Oubre, but unlike all the guys that keep getting max deals, Oubre isn’t a starter. He will get a huge pay raise no doubt, but I doubt it will be a max deal. At think point after next year he’s likely gone and will be a starter somewhere else on a deal paying him like $20M a year, but not starter $. Oubre hasn’t proven to even be as consistent a player as Porter was when Porter got his max deal. I just don’t see it.

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Gotta agree with turtle here. Because of how the NBA and its salary cap work, they really only have two options: trade at least Wall and Beal (and probably Porter as well) and join the tank race or keep them and go as far as they can take you.

You can’t just trade Wall. Even if you could find someone to make room for the contract, what’s the point? You’d still be too cap-heavy to sign another different max player (even if they wanted to come here, which they don’t) because of Beal and Porter and Mahinmi. And you’d still be much too good to properly tank. It’s guaranteed mediocrity.

The only proper plays in the NBA are either all in or all out. And no, currently they aren’t good enough to compete with the best in the league. And yes, they’ll probably need some luck to land the frontcourt pieces they need to take the last step forward (whether it’s through the draft or a shrewd trade or a mid-level signing).

But I also don’t think they’re at “no choice but to blow it all up and start tanking” status. Teams with multiple legitimate All-Stars really shouldn’t be thinking about calling it quits unless their core is past its prime, or at least getting close. And the Wizards aren’t at that point yet.

I’d much rather see them take a shot with Wall and Beal, hope they can find that one last piece to put them over the top (in the East, at least), and see how far they can go. They’re a 43 or 44 win team with their best player hurt all season (and out for much of it). You can’t give up on that. Not yet, anyway.